In today’s ‘instant world’ plagued by financial difficulty, many of us are seeking instant miracles to reduce our personal debt following spending years of living in excess.

Thus Brits in their thousands are turning to debt management companies to help them reduce their debt commitments and regain control of the family finances.

Those in the upper middle classes (and certainly those with a combination of wealth, financial acumen and discipline) are increasingly scoffing at such behaviour – indeed part blaming it for compounding the economic difficulties of the past 3 or 4 years.

But whose fault is it really?

The banks for making such poor lending decisions in the first place?

Or us, the general public, for accepting offers of such easy money?

Having developed a mini debt mountain of your very own, once it becomes unserviceable (and certainly once you are unable to perform balance transfer magic or rob Peter to pay Paul) then the next stop can be quite drastic. Alternatives include going cap in hand to a family member, taking an equity loan on your house – should you be lucky enough to have any equity – or entering into a debt management plan or IVA.

When debt management companies first sprang up in the UK way back in the early nineties, there were a number of small to medium sized companies offering a debt management service to their clients. During recent years, these have been narrowed down to a few and now this market exists as an oligopoly with a few large players claiming the majority of the marketplace and its clients.

Where this happens, the inevitable consequences are poor customer service, service failures and a lack of personalisation. Look at any market run by a few small players and you will see the same. You can move or leave debt management companies!

Energy companies are blighted by their inability to get household bills correct.

Should you have taken out a debt management plan with one of the large companies, it’s understandable that you may not feel personally served. Hidden fees in your terms and conditions, charges for break clauses, or simply the inability to talk to anyone who actually manages your case on a day to day basis is frustrating, infuriating and very much the opposite to the glossy brochure you were sent originally!

Here at Lewis Alexander we take a different view. As an established name in debt management, we ensure all our clients are afforded a personal, professional service that cannot be matched by our competitors. One dedicated point of contact throughout your dealings.

Once we have taken your case, we appoint a senior case manager who will be your contact throughout the period of time you use our service.

Whilst we can’t promise they are available 24/7 (we do encourage our advisors to get a good night’s sleep!) we do promise that if your case manager is not available to take your call, then we will take your details and get your case manager to call you back when they become available.

Our call centre is also based in the UK, so you will not need to learn another language just to speak to us! Lines are open 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

By retaining this personal touch we believe that fewer mistakes are made when evaluating your financial situation during our initial financial healthcheck. We don’t simply set up arrangements for clients unless we truly believe there is a benefit to you. This time investment at the start of the process means that more of our clients are happy with what we do for them. As we strongly believe that recommendation is our strongest avenue of new client attainment, this means that we generate most of our new clients via existing client referrals.

Finally, we are completely open with our charges and encourage our customers to review our terms & conditions and our competitor’s offerings to ensure that any solution we offer is competitive. We also display our debt management plan charges clearly and concisely up front. We know that being in debt is extremely stressful and so we don’t want our clients to be worrying about ‘the small print’ in our terms of business!